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If you’re a fan of anime figures, now’s your chance to easily purchase them.  Danny Choo has just announced the English version of the Good Smile Company website.

Danny is one of the most popular bloggers in Japan, covering anime, manga, toy shows and games.

I’ve always been impressed with the level of detail these figures have.

I will warn you, though.  Although many of the figures are quite tame, there are figures available in Japan that are from Ero-games, manga and anime.  They most certainly are rated R.

A quick check of the site and I found they do indeed give you a warning that says “mature content, 18 years or older” - so you are warned before going to a section that is NSFW.

Check out Good Smile Company.

If you’ve always dreamed of having huge eyes like the characters in your favorite anime, now you can!  Apparently this somewhat sketchy appearing site is now selling contact lenses that have a much larger colored area than normal colored contacts.  This gives the appearence of much larger eyes.

The site says:

Wanna get big watery shiny eyes without plastic surgery?  Always crave to get big eyes like Korean actresses and famous Ayumi Hamasaki?

I suppose if you’re really into cosplay, it’d be worth the $35.  Of course, personally I don’t stick anything in my eyes (but I’m a big chicken).

What do you think?

Over on the Japancast Social Site, I’ve asked everyone to make sure they have an avatar & upload a photo.  However, some people don’t want to use their photo for their avatar and don’t know how to make one.  I just found a site that will let you create your own avatar in manga style.  It’s easy to use and does a pretty nice job.  Here is an avatar of me.

So head over to http://www.faceyourmanga.com and create your avatar and then upload it to the Japancast Social Site!

From AWN News and Variety:

Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt’s Plan B have purchased the rights to manga series MIKI FALLS, per VARIETY.

TV writer Sera Gamble will adapt the four-volume series from Mark Crilley. MIKI FALLS is about Miki Yoshida’s senior year in high school. When she tries to befriend handsome new student Hiro Sakurai she is met with resistance, but she stubbornly refuses to take no for an answer, leading to a surprising revelation about the secretive teenage boy.

Crilley is best known for the AKIKO young adult novels and comics. The first of the MIKI FALLS series, each of which is a calendar season, was published in May 2007 by HarperTeen.

Gamble is a producer on SUPERNATURAL on The CW and was a staff writer on EYES on ABC. She was a finalist on PROJECT GREENLIGHT for her screenplay CHEEKS.

Looks like we’re going to see a flood of new movies based on Naruto, Bleach, Death Note and more.

From AWN News:

Japanese manga and graphic novel publisher VIZ Media is starting a production company to create films from their catalogue, including NARUTO, BLEACH and DEATH NOTE, per VARIETY.

Jason Hoffs, former production exec at Amblin and DreamWorks, will head up the company, based in Hollywood.

Japanese publishing houses Shogakukan, Shueisha and Hakusensha are the parent companies. Those three publish almost half of all manga that comes to the U.S.

Hoffs will be a mediator between the creative licensors in Japan and Hollywood, with VIZ Prods. to develop some titles in house.

“Properties like NARUTO, BLEACH, DEATH NOTE, VAMPIRE KNIGHT and MONSTER are just a few properties that show the massive appeal of manga to many different demographics, and we have an almost endless pool of titles to draw from,” Hoffs said to VARIETY.

VIZ is just one of many publishing companies taking the Japanese example and setting up production pipelines for their own content. Newspaper giant THE NEW YORK TIMES and videogame company Capcom have also recently announced film projects.

Until watching this video, I had no idea that France was the 2nd largest consumer of manga in the world.  Omoshiroi!

A timelapse of Japanese designer Hiroshi Yoshii creating a cute anime monster in 3D. If you’ve ever been interested in working in anime in Japan, pay attention!